Leading Boutiques Combine to Form SDV Fenchurch, A Global Law Firm for Insurance Policyholders
September 15, 2026 —
SDV FenchurchTRUMBULL, Conn., and LONDON, Sept. 1, 2026 — Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. (SDV), Fenchurch Law, Wesolowski Abogados, and CLIR & Fenchurch and their partner members in Asia, Europe and North America combined today to launch SDV Fenchurch, a global law firm built exclusively to represent policyholders and the brokers who advise them.
Structured as a Swiss verein, SDV Fenchurch unites dedicated insurance-recovery practices across eight jurisdictions in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, and Singapore. With over 90 lawyers devoted to insurance coverage matters, the firm is among the largest policyholder-side practices in the world and, by number of jurisdictions with full-time policyholder counsel capabilities, the most geographically extensive.
The founders are brought together by a single shared mission: to act solely for policyholders, never the insurers, in insurance disputes. This is in stark contrast to most international firms with insurance practices, which mostly represent insurers only.
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SDV Fenchurch
Insufficient Notice of Commencement and Construction Lien Rights
August 03, 2026 —
David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal UpdatesWhen a party is preserving their construction lien rights, the party will look to the recorded Notice of Commencement. This is the recorded document that provides the lienor with the information for purposes of preserving construction lien rights. A Notice to Owner company will typically rely on the Notice of Commencement to serve Notices to Owners from lower tiers not in contract with the owner. However, when it comes to preparing the lien, a lienor should look beyond just the Notice of Commencement and also look to the property appraiser’s website as a backstop.
In a recent case, a window company had the homeowner sign the Notice of Commencement and then filled in the information. The company naturally did this for the convenience of the homeowner that probably was unfamiliar with the Notice of Commencement process. Regardless, information in the Notice of Commencement was inaccurate. It failed to include all the real property owners. Thus, when a payment dispute arose and a construction lien was prepared, it did not identify all of the real property owners. All of the real property owners were added later during the pendency of a lien foreclosure lawsuit. The trial court denied the lien because of the defective / insufficient Notice of Commencement — the lienor assumed the risk of error by filling out the information in the Notice of Commencement. The trial court further denied the lien holding that because the work did not commence within 90 days of the Notice of Commencement, the Notice of Commencement is void.
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David Adelstein, Kirwin NorrisMr. Adelstein may be contacted at
dma@kirwinnorris.com
Risk Reset: Concerns Top of Mind for Top Construction Law Firms
September 28, 2026 —
David McMillin - Construction ExecutiveIn the summer of 2025, contractors were consumed by one major issue: tariffs. Owners, builders and suppliers were trying to understand how shifting trade policy would affect bid pricing and ongoing projects. While those concerns have eased after a Supreme Court ruling, some of the industry’s top legal experts—all of whom practice at some of CE’s Top 50 Construction Law Firms—point to a different set of worries that are keeping their clients up at night and keeping their offices busy.
Inflation is not fading away, creating continued price challenges. Artificial intelligence is moving at a breakneck pace, offering potential time-saving benefits paired with major liability concerns. The federal government continues to make surprising policy changes, and contractors remain focused on managing financial risk across increasingly complex projects.
Reprinted courtesy of
David McMillin, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Old Storm, New Claim: A Fifth Circuit Notice Reminder
November 02, 2026 —
Koorosh Talieh & Torrye Zullo - Hunton Insurance Recovery BlogIn a recent decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for a commercial property insurer in a dispute involving the timing of notice for a hail damage claim. In
Gann v. Depositors Insurance Co., No. 25-11291 (5th Cir. Oct. 5, 2026), the policyholder reported a claim after discovering interior water damage in 2022, but its consultant later attributed all of the claimed roof damage to a hailstorm that occurred in 2018. The court concluded that the delay in identifying and reporting the 2018 loss was unreasonable and prejudiced the insurer’s ability to investigate the circumstances of the loss in a timely manner. The decision is an important reminder for policyholders of the need for timely notice under property insurance policies. Such issues can arise, as they did in Gann, even where damage is not immediately apparent, its cause is not initially known, or the cause of loss may implicate a different policy period than the one under which the claim was first made.
The Dispute
The dispute arose from hail damage to the roof of a commercial property in Irving, Texas. After discovering interior water damage, the policyholder reported a claim to the insurer in September 2022, specifying August 9, 2022, as the date of loss. The insurer inspected the property and determined that a portion of the roof had sustained hail-related damage and issued payment.
Reprinted courtesy of
Koorosh Talieh, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and
Torrye Zullo, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Mr. Talieh may be contacted at ktalieh@hunton.com
Ms. Zullo may be contacted at tzullo@hunton.com
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Construction Attorneys: Contract Negotiation Strategy
September 01, 2026 —
Construction ExecutiveContract negotiation is where project expectations become enforceable business obligations. A reasonable bid can become a high-risk agreement when the final contract expands the scope, shortens notice periods, limits payment rights or transfers liability that was never included in the price. Construction attorneys help project leaders identify those consequences before execution.
Their role is not to eliminate every risk or prolong negotiations. It is to determine which risks can be controlled, insured, priced, shared or rejected while preserving a workable deal. The financial stakes can be substantial.
HKA's 2025 analysis of more than 2,200 distressed construction and engineering projects found that disputed costs averaged 33.4% of contract budgets. Scope changes affected more than 28% of the projects studied and remained the most common cause of conflict. In North America,
the average dispute studied by Arcadis in 2024 had a value of $60.1 million and took 12.5 months to resolve.
Reprinted courtesy of
Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Achieving Sustainability Through Design-Build Delivery: Part I – An Overview
September 21, 2026 —
Joshua M. Pruett, Jennifer L. Harris & Tiffany A. Harrod - Peckar & Abramson, P.C.This article was written for the AGC’s Law in Brief and first appeared here.
Sustainability is no longer optional. What was once a matter of public policy or corporate preference has become a regulatory mandate and is reshaping how construction projects are designed, built, and operated. This mandate is not solely figurative. Rather, states have started to follow Europe’s lead by beginning to codify sustainability requirements into regulations and law. California led the charge by adding mandatory embodied-carbon emissions regulations into CALGreen, and other states, such as New York, have introduced bills to implement similar requirements. Owners, designers, and builders must now treat sustainability not as aspirational, but as a clearly defined contract issue from the outset, particularly where the project is expected to achieve a third-party rating, meet energy or resiliency targets, qualify for incentives, or comply with evolving green building codes.
In the federal public sector, construction contracts include a layered compliance framework—executive order-inspired policy, FAR-mandated clauses, and enduring statutory requirements—requiring contractors to integrate sustainability into design, material selection, and lifecycle management. Staying ahead means aligning with regulatory standards, conducting life-cycle cost analyses, and embedding sustainability into every procurement and construction decision.
Reprinted courtesy of
Joshua M. Pruett, Peckar & Abramson, P.C.,
Jennifer L. Harris, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and
Tiffany A. Harrod, Peckar & Abramson, P.C.
Mr. Pruett may be contacted at jpruett@pecklaw.com
Ms. Harris may be contacted at jharris@pecklaw.com
Ms. Harrod may be contacted at tharrod@pecklaw.com
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Arizona Court of Appeals Clarifies Homeowners Association Open Meeting Requirements
June 29, 2026 —
Jill Casson Owen, Benjamin J. Hawkins & Stephen Wright - Snell & WilmerA Z N H Revocable Trust v. Sunland Springs Village Homeowners Association, No. 1 CA-CV 25-0424 (Ariz. Ct. App. Apr. 28, 2026)
OVERVIEW
The Arizona Court of Appeals issued an opinion clarifying how homeowners associations must conduct meetings under A.R.S. § 33-1804. The decision reinforces the legislative policy favoring transparency in association governance, bringing association meeting requirements more in line with the open meeting standards applicable to public bodies under A.R.S. § 38-431 et seq. (Arizona’s Open Meeting Law).
KEY HOLDINGS
1. All Voting and Formal Actions Must Occur in Open Meetings
The Court affirmed that association boards cannot vote or take formal action during closed (executive) sessions. Under A.R.S. § 33-1804(A), associations may close portions of meetings only for “consideration” of certain enumerated topics, such as legal advice, pending litigation, or personal/financial information about individual members. The Court interpreted “consideration” to mean discussion and deliberation, not voting. The Court noted that dictionaries define “consider” as “spending time thinking about a possibility” and “formulating an opinion,” which are processes that precede formal action. This interpretation mirrors how Arizona’s Open Meeting Law (A.R.S. § 38-431.03(D)) prohibits public bodies from voting in executive session.
Reprinted courtesy of
Jill Casson Owen, Snell & Wilmer,
Benjamin J. Hawkins, Snell & Wilmer and
Stephen Wright, Snell & Wilmer
Ms. Owen may be contacted at jowen@swlaw.com
Mr. Hawkins may be contacted at bhawkins@swlaw.com
Mr. Wright may be contacted at swright@swlaw.com
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We Won’t Permit That Excuse!
June 23, 2026 —
Curt Martin & Richard Eiszner - ConsensusDocsA Texas appellate court recently ruled that a building permit wasn’t a condition precedent for a construction project. That caught our attention. Can you build a commercial project without a permit?
But as we read the case, we see the court’s reasoning. And it reminds us of an important legal principle that should inform our contract drafting and negotiation.
The case was a civil suit brought by the project owner against its tenant improvement contractor for work on a medical spa. The owner claimed that the contractor didn’t perform the work properly and didn’t finish construction. The contractor argued that delays and problems were caused by the owner, alleging numerous failures, including the owner’s failure to secure a building permit.
Reprinted courtesy of
Curt Martin, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and
Richard Eiszner, Peckar & Abramson, P.C.
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@pecklaw.com
Mr. Eiszner may be contacted at reiszner@pecklaw.com
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